Stats scaling past 18/19

[kingius]

Hello esteemed and knowledgeable forum members!

I have a question for you. Do you think that 3.5 might have lost its way when it allowed core stats (Strength, Dexterity, Constituion, Wisdom, Intelligence and Charisma) scale up past the 18/19 mark?

I can remember in AD&D Second edition, 19 being reserved for vampires and the higher 20s being for Cloud Giants and similar monsters. That really did make a lot of sense. The only way to get a character's strength that high would have been to find a rare magical item (although racial modifiers could push some characters past 18 and to 19). This gave the players a clear reference point: Vampires were strong and you didn't want to mess with them, Strength 18 was the score for the strongest man in the world and for ogres, and so on.

It's much harder to do this with 3.5 because it is possible to scale strengths very high and it's not even too difficult to do. Common spells do this, for example. Instead of saying something like, boost strength to 18, they will often say something like +3 strength for the duration. In unlocking the core stats in this way, did we also lose something in the process?

 

[Dandu]

No.

 

[radja]

2nd edition had the horrible tacked-on system of fractional strength, only for warriors and only for some races. 3.5 was a big improvement, since it made all the stats equal and flattened the stat curve.

 

[kingius]

Fighters could go past 18 with a d100 system, so there could be a fighter with 18-01 strength and another with 18-100 strength, which did push the bonuses higher. There is a certain logic to this, though; it made fighters more special and was probably an attempt to balance them against magic users and clerics (I would guess).

I'm not sure why they didnt expand that out to other classes' prime requisites, though.

It still put a maximum on the player characters, though, a ceiling. The Vampire's strength 19 was above the fighters maximum of 18-100 in the ability chart (bear in mind, with 3d6 in order, the odds of getting 18-100 were 1 in 21600!), so the Vampire was always stronger than any man could be.

It's a good point though and one I'd not considered.

The real point I'm raising though is shouldn't ability scores in 3.5 be capped at some reasonable level? Has anybody tried to do this?

 

[Sekhmet]

I really didn't enjoy the percentile system. 01-75 granted +3 damage, and then it scaled from 3 to 6 over the course of 25 points. 18, 18/01-50 were +1 to hit, and then 51-99 was +2.

Basically, the scaling made no sense and was largely unnecessary. The difference between 18 (+1/+2) and 18/00 (+3/+6) was dramatic, but there are so many ways to pick up a 19 Str (+3/+7) that it became almost pointless to worry about.

 

[kingius]

What ways did you find to scale Strength to 19? My knowledge of second edition is from about 15 years ago so you'll have to fill the gaps in my memory in.

The percentile system was to make the higher bonusses very rare, sort of like the same reason for using 3d6 where 18 would be a 1 in 216 chance and therefore rare. That's the theory, anyway!

 

[Ahnehnois]

I did not like the percentile strength or, on a more basic level, the nonlinear scaling. 4 to 11 is the difference between a cripple and an average person, 11 to 18 is the difference between an average human being and a body builder, but 18 to 25 is the difference between a body builder and a giant the size of an office building? At least in 3.5, the numbers feel like they mean something.

Moreover, I hate caps. A character that starts at 18 has maxed out? Can't get any better? Aren't we playing a fantasy roleplaying game? Fantasy and arbitrary limitations on power just don't mix well. I want super strength when my character reaches high levels!

So while the 3.X system is not perfect, it is a big step forward from 2e, in my eyes.

 

[Crothian]

Allowing such high stats certainly didn't help. They did some good things with attributes like making the bonuses the same and starting earlier but I do agree that allowing them to get up so high helps make the high level game unmanageable for some.

 

[Dandu]

The real point I'm raising though is shouldn't ability scores in 3.5 be capped at some reasonable level? Has anybody tried to do this?

Why don't you give it a shot and let us know how it turns out? If you make a pbp game on the forums, I'd even be willing to join in to help test it.

Tangent: Did 2e have a lower strength cap for human females compared to human males?

 

[kingius]

I don't recall there being a difference in stats between male and female characters in second edition. I suppose I could always check in my old players handbook ( I still have it ). If there had been differences in the sexes in this way, I wouldn't have minded it. I quite like the scene in Red Sonja where Arnie and Red Sonja do battle and his strength and her skill are evenly matched. I suppose some feminists might not have liked that, though, but that's a bit out of scope of this discussion.

I might try 3.5 with ceilinged stats and I have got some other ideas as well which would change the game somewhat. Most of them would scale downwards in potential power the characters (player and NPC) can do. Like for example, I'm wondering what would happen to buffs if only one plus can apply to any type of stat or roll (the highest would get priority), so they do not stack. Imagine if a character with a +1 strength bonus gets no benefit from a minor +1 magical weapon because he's using his strength and power to punch the blade through the armour, but a +2 magical weapon forces him to switch tactics to being skillful to gain its benefit, for example. This would need some major thinking. Base attack bonus could easily outclass the + to hit that a magic weapon would give, changing the game significantly.